CIHM 
Microfiche 
Series 
(l\/lonographs) 


ICMH 

Collection  de 
microfiches 
(monographies) 


Canadian  Institute  for  Historical  MIcroreproductions  /  Institut  Canadian  de  microreproductlons  historiques 


1 


Technical  and  Bibliographic  Note*  /  Notts  tachniques  et  bibliographiquM 


The  Institute  has  attempted  to  obtain  the  best  original 
copy  available  for  filming.  Features  of  this  copy  which 
may  be  bibliographically  unique,  which  may  altar  any 
of  the  images  in  the  reproduction,  or  which  may 
significantly  change  the  usual  method  of  filming,  are 
checked  below. 


L'Institut  a  microfilm*  le  meilleur  exemplaire  qu'il 
lui  a  *t*  possible  dc  se  procurer.  Les  details  da  cet 
exemplaire  qui  sont  peut4tre  uniques  du  point  de  «ue 
btbliographique,  qui  peu»ent  modifier  une  image 
reproduite.  ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une  modification 
dans  la  mithode  normale  de  f  ilmage  sont  indiqute 
ci-dessous. 


0  Coloured  covers/ 
Couverture  de  couleur 

0  Covers  damaged/ 
Couverture  endommagte 


□  Coloured  pages/ 
Pages  de  couleur 


0 


Pages  damaged/ 
Pages  endommagies 


Covers  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Couverture  restaurie  et/ou  pelliculte 

Cover  title  missing/ 

Le  titre  de  couverture  manque 


□  Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Pages  restauries  et/ou  pelliculics 

I   y\  Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed/ 
I  r     I  Pages  dteolories,  tacheties  ou  piquees 


D 


Coloured  maps/ 

Cartes  giographiques  en  couleur 


□  Pages  detached/ 
Pages  ditachies 


D 


Coloured  ink  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 
Encre  de  couleur  (i.e.  autre  que  bleue  ou  noire) 

Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrations/ 
Planches  et/ou  illustrations  en  couleur 

Bound  with  other  material/ 
Relie  avec  d'autres  documents 

Tight  binding  may  cause  shadows  or  distortion 
along  interior  margin/ 

La  reliure  serrte  peut  causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la 
distorsion  le  long  de  la  marge  interieure 

Blank  leaves  added  during  restoration  may  appear 
within  the  text.  Whenever  pouible,  these  have 
been  omitted  from  filming/ 
II  se  peut  que  certaines  pages  blanches  ajouties 
lors  d'une  restauration  apparaissent  dans  le  texte, 
mais.  lorsque  cela  etait  possible,  ces  pages  n'ont 
pas  ete  filmees. 


0Showthrough/ 
Transparence 

□  Quality  of  print  varies/ 
Qualite  inigale  de  I'im^ 

n 


n 


impression 

Continuous  pagination/ 
Pagination  continue 

Includes  index(es)/ 
Comprend  un  (des)  index 

Title  on  header  taken  from:  / 
Le  titre  de  I'en-tlte  provient: 

Title  page  of  issue/ 

Page  de  titre  de  la  livraison 


I        I  Caption  of  issue/ 


D 


Titre  de  depart  de  la  livraison 

Masthead/ 

Generique  (periodiques)  de  la  livraison 


Z 


Additional  comments:/ 
Coinmentaires  supplementaires: 


There  are  some  creases  in  the  middle  of  the  pages, 


This  Item  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  checked  below/ 

Ce  document  est  filme  au  taux  de  rMuction  indique  ci-dessous. 


10X 

MX 

18X 

22X 

26  X 

MX 

y 

12X 


16X 


20X 


24  X 


28X 


32  X 


Th«  copy  filmed  h«r«  hat  b««n  rtproductd  thanks 
to  tht  ganaroslty  of: 

Canadiana  department 
North  York  Central    Library 

Tha  imagaa  appaaring  hara  ara  tha  bast  quality 
possibia  considaring  tha  condition  and  lagibiiitv 
of  tha  original  copy  and  in  kaaping  with  tha 
filming  contract  spacificationa. 


Original  copias  in  printad  papar  covors  ara  fllmad 
baginning  with  tha  front  covar  and  anding  on 
tha  last  paga  with  a  printad  or  iilustratad  improa- 
sion,  or  tha  back  covar  whan  appropriata.  All 
other  original  copias  ara  filmed  beginning  on  tha 
first  page  with  a  printad  or  illustrated  impres- 
sion, and  ending  on  the  last  page  with  a  printad 
or  illustrated  impression. 


The  last  recorded  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  the  symbol  -♦«  (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  V  (meaning  "END") 
whichever  applies. 

Maps,  plates,  charts,  etc..  may  be  filmed  at 
different  reduction  ratios.  Those  too  large  to  ba 
entirely  included  in  one  exposure  are  filmed 
beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bonom.  as  many  frames  as 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  tha 
method: 


L'exemplaire  film*  fut  reproduit  grlce  i  la 
gSn^rotit*  da: 

Canadiana  department 
North  Yorl<  Central    Library 

Las  Images  suivantes  ont  «t«  reproduites  avec  le 
plus  grand  som.  compts  tenu  de  la  condition  at 
da  la  nattet*  de  lenemplaira  film*,  et  en 
eonformit*  avec  las  conditions  du  contrat  de 
Tiimaga. 

Les  exemplaires  originaux  dont  la  couverture  en 
papier  est  imprimAe  sont  film«s  en  commencant 
par  le  premier  plat  et  en  terminant  soit  par  la 
derni*re  page  qui  comports  une  empreinte 
d  impression  ou  d'illustration.  soit  par !«  second 
p(at,  selon  le  cas.  Tous  les  sutres  exemplaires 
origmaux  sont  film«s  en  commenpant  par  la 
premi*re  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d  impression  ou  d'illustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  derniAre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  des  symboles  suivants  spparaitra  sur  la 
darnidre  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  le 
cas:  le  symbole  — ^  signifie  "A  SUIVRE  '   le 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 

Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc..  peuvent  «tre 
film*8  *  des  taux  de  reduction  diff*rents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  *tre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  clich*.  11  est  film*  *  partir 
da  I'angie  sup*rieur  gauche,  de  gauche  *  droite 
et  de  haut  en  baa,  an  pranant  le  nombre 
d'imagas  n*cessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  m*thode. 


1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

1.0 


I.I 


Hi 

b 

IL 


Itt  1^     III  2.2 


I 


2.0 
1.8 


MICROCOPY  RESOLUTION  TEST  CHART 

NATIONAL  BUREAU  OF  STANDARDS 

STANDARD  REFERENCE  MATERIAL  1010a 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


l^p 


'■ 


Why  people  should 
own  and  read  books 

BY  ALL  means,  read  books. 
When  you  reach  old  age  you 
will  look  back  and  realize  that 
nothing  else,  e'^spt  tobacco,  ha?  wrought  you  so  much 
good.  But  there  is  one  condition  to  be  observed.  You 
must  read  with  intellectual  honesty.  If  you  like  a  book, 
and  can  read  it  for  its  own  sake,  then  read  it;  if  not,  lay 
it  aside. 

Don't  read  Browning's  "Andrea  del  Sarto"  and  "Pippa 
Passes"  when  you  know  in  your  heart  that  you  would 
rather  saw  wood.  Let  Pippa  pass.  She  is  not  for  you. 
If  you  find  that  you  like  Laura  Jean  Libbey's  books  better 
than  Ibsen's,  read  Laura  Jean  Libbey.  Never  mind  Ibsen's 
feelings.     It  is  no  reflection  on  him. 

Anjrway,  I  doubt  Dante  myself.  Hand  me  that  last 
book  by  O.  Henry.     Thjuik  you. 


The  Amazing  Genius 
of  O.  Henry* 


y  W^iS  real  name  was  William  Sydney  Porter.  His  nom  de 
§  m  plume,  O.  Henry, — hopelessly  tame  and  colourless  from  a 
-*•  -*■  literary  point  of  view, — seems  to  have  been  adopted  in  a 
whimsical  moment,  with  no  great  thought  as  to  its  aptness.  It  is 
amazing  that  he  should  have  selected  so  poor  a  pen  name.  Those 
who  can  remember  their  first  shock  of  pleased  surprise  on  hearing 
that  Rudyard  Kiplint.'s  name  was  really  Rudyard  Kipling,  will  feel 
something  like  pain  m  learning  that  any  writer  could  deliberately 
christen  himself  "  '." 

The  circumst.  »he  more  peculiar  inasmuch  as  O.  Henry's 

works  abound  in  i  nomenclature.  The  names  that  he  claps  on 

his  Central  Ameiicau  idvent  iers  are  things  of  joy  to  the  artistic 
eye, — General  Perrico  Ximenes  Villablanca  Falcon!  Ramon  Angel  de 
las  Cruzes  Miraflores,  president  of  the  republic  of  Anchuria!  Don 
Sefior  el  Coronel  Encarnacion  Rios!  The  very  spirit  of  romance  and 
revolution  breathes  through  them!  Or  what  more  beautiful  for  a 
Nevada  town  than  Topaz  City  ?  What  name  more  appropriate  for  a 
commuter's  suburb 
than  Floralhurst?  And 
these  are  only  examples 
among  thousands.  !n 
all  the  two  hundred 
stories  that  O.  Henry 
wrote,  there  is  hardly 


«'*-'Yi;S 


"He  that  U  without  tin,  let 
him  fint  coat  a  •tone—" 

A  woman  croucfitd  dovm  agaiutt 
the  iron  fence  of  the  park,  soibing 
turbulently.  Her  rich  fur  coat 
dragged  on  the  ground.  Her  dia- 
mond  ringed  hands  clung  to  the 
slender  plainly  dressed  working  girl 
who  leaned  close,  trying  to  console, 
Dan  "was  the  cause  of  it  aB. 
Dan  and  that  chap  with  the  auKh 
mobile  and  the  diamonds.  O.Henry 
sarw,  and  seeing,  understood.  He 
tells  about  it  all  in  one  of  his  won- 
derful stories. 


*  This  stiiry  of  O.  Henrv's  life  is  taken  from  Stephen  Leacocli's  book 
"Essays  and  Literary  Studies,"  published  by  John  Lane  Co.,  New  York. 


a  single  name  that  is  inappropriate  or  without  a  proper  literary  sug- 
gestiveness,  except  the  name  that  he  signed  to  them. 

O.  Henry, — as  he  signed  himself, — was  born  in  1867,  '"t>st  proba- 
bly at  Greensboij,  North  Carolina.  For  the  first  thirty  or  thirty- 
five  years  of  his  life,  few  knew  or  cared  where  he  was  born,  or  whither 
he  was  going.  Now  that  he  has  been  dead  five  years  he  shares 
already  with  Homer  the  honour  of  a  disputed  birthplace. 

While  still  a  boy,  O.  Henry  (there  is  no  use  in  calling  him  any- 
thing else)  went  to  Texas,  where  he  worked  for  three  years  on  a  ranch. 
He  drifted  into  the  city  of  Houston  and  got  employment  on  a  news- 
paper. A  year  later  he  bought  a  newspaper  of  his  own  in  Austin, 
Texas,  for  the  sum  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  He  rechristened 
it  The  Rolling  Stone,  wrote  it,  and  even  illustrated  it,  himself.  But 
the  paper  was  too  well  named.  Its  editor  himself  rolled  away  from 
it,  and  from  the  shores  of  Texas  the  wandering  restlessness  that  was 
characteristic  of  him  wafted  him  down  the  great  gulf  to  the  en- 
chanted land  of  Central  America.  Here  he  "knocked  around,"  as 
he  himself  has  put  it,  "mostly  among  refugees  and  consuls."  Here 
too  was  laid  the  foundation  of  much  of  his  most  characteristic  work, 
— his  Cabbages  and  Kings,  and  such  stories  as  Phcebe  and  The  Fourth 
in  Salvador. 

Latin  America  fascinated  O.  Henry 

The  languor  of  the  tropics;  the  sunlit  seas  with  their  open  bays 
and  broad  sanded  beaches,  with  green  palms  nodding  on  the  slopes 
above, — white-painted  steamers  lazily  at  anchor, — quaint  Spanish 
towns,  with  adobe  houses  and  wide  squares,  sunk  in  their  noon- 
day sleep, —  beautiful  Seiioritas  drowsing  away  the  afternoon  in 
hammocks;  the  tinkling  of  the  mule  bells  on  the  mountain  track 
above  the  town, — the  cries  of  unknown  birds  issuing  from  the 
dense  green  of  the  unbroken  jungle — and  at  night  in  the  soft 
darkness,  the  low  murmur  of  the  guitar,  soft  thrumming  with 
the  voice  of  love — these  are  the  sights  and  sounds  of  O.  Henry's 
Central  America.  Here  live  and  move  his  tattered  revolutionists, 
his  gaudy  generals  of  the  mimic  army  of  the  existing  republic; 
hither  ply  his  white-painted  steamers  of  the  fruit  trade;  here 
the  American  consul,  with  a  shadowed  past  and  $600  a  year, 
drinks  away  the  remembrance  of  his  northern  energy  and  his  college 
education  in  the  land  of  forgetfulness.  Hither  the  absconding  banker 
from  the  States  is  dropped  from  the  passing  steamer,  clutching  tight 


"ExtradiUd  from  Bohtmia" 

Poor  little  letter!  IVhtn  Hoskins  eot  it,  he  set  right 
out  for  New  York  City  as  fast  as  he  could  go  and— 
"when  he  got  there— ^ut  it's  all  told  better  by  O.  Henry 
iff  one  more  of  his  wonderful  stories. 


in  his  shaking  hand  his  valise  of  stolen  dollars;  him 
the  disguised  detective,  lounging  beside  the  littlt. 
drinking  shop,  watches  with  a  furtive  eye.  And  here 
in  this  land  of  enchantment  th  broken  lives,  the 
wasted  hopes,  the  ambition  that  was  never  reached, 
the  frailty  that  was  never  conquered,  ure  somehow 
pieced  together  and  illuminated  into  what  they  might 
have  been, — and  even  the  reckless  crime  and  the  open  sin,  viewed 
in  the  softened  haze  of  such  an  atmosphere,  are  half  forgiven. 

Whether  this  is  the  "real Central  America"  or  not,  is  of  no  con- 
sequence. It  probably  is  not.  The"realCentral  America"  may  best 
be  left  to  the  up-to-date  specialist,  the  energetic  newspaper  expert,  or 
the  travelling  lady  correspondent, — to  all  such  persons,  in  fact,  as 
are  capable  of  writing  Six  Weeks  in  Nicaragua,  or  Costa  Rica  As  I 
Saw  It.  Most  likely  the  Central  America  of  O.  Henry  is  as  glor- 
iously Tinreal  as  the  London  of  Charles  Dickens,  or  the  Salem  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  or  any  other  beautiful  picture  of  the  higher 
truth  of  life  that  can  be  shattered  into  splinters  in  the  didtorting 
prism  of  cold  fact. 

From  Central  America  O.  Henry  rolled,  drifted  or  floated, — there 
was  no  method  in  his  life, — back  to  Texas  again.    Here  he  worked 


WhoWm-'Thm  GuOty Party?" 


When  this  younv,  prl — slipped  far  from 
the  tuoHd's  idea  of  "virtue — her  heart 
trtaking  -with  outraxd  love — tent  a 
kmje  into  the  heart  of  the  man,  ivomen 
ailed  her  guilty — men  called  him  guilty 
—but  O.  Henry,  -who  kncrws  the  hearts 
of  weak  huma^t,  rvho  understands  women, 
"who  sets  ot.  .  faint  line  between  the 
angfl  and  the  sinner  -O.  Henry  found 
the  guilt  far  baik  in  another  place — in 
the  heart  of  a  red-headed,  unshared, 
untidy  party,  -who  sat  by  his  "Uiindotv 
and  read,  "while  his  children  played  in 
the  streets. 


for  two  weeks  in  a  drug  store.  This  brief 
experience  supplied  him  all  the  rest  of  his 
life  with  local  colour  and  technical  ma- 
terial for  his  stories.  So  well  has  he  used 
it  that  the  obstinate  legend  still  runs 
that  O.  Henry  was  a  druggist.  A  strict 
examination  of  his  work  would  show 
that  he  knew  the  names  of  about  seven- 
teen drugs  and  was  able  to  describe  the 
rolling  of  pills  with  the  life-like  accuracy 
of  one  who  has  rolled  them.  But  it  was 
characteristic  of  his  instinct  for  literary 
values  that  even  on  this  slender  basis 
O.  Henry  was  able  to  make  his  characters 
"take  down  from  shelves"  such  mys- 
terious things  as  Sod.  et.  Pot.  Tart.,  or 
discuss  whether  magnesia  carbonate  or 
pulverised  glycerine  is  the  best  excipient, 
and  in  moments  of  high  traced"  poison 
themselves  with  "tincture  of  aconite." 

Whether  these  terms  are  correctly 
used  or  not  I  do  not  know.  Nor  can  I 
conceive  that  it  matters.  O.  Henry  was 
a  literary  artist  first,  last  and  always. 
It  was  the  effect  and  the  feeling  that  he 
wanted.  For  technical  accuracy  he  cared 
not  one  whit. 


There  is  a  certain  kind  of  author  who 
thinks  to  make  literature  by  introducing, 
"■  let  us  say,  a  plumber  using  seven  differ- 
ent kinds  of  tap-washers  with  seven  different  names;  and  there  is  a 
certain  type  of  reader  who  is  thereby  conscious  of  seven  different 
kinds  of  ignorance,  and  is  fascinated  forthwith.  From  pedantry  of 
this  sort  O.  Henry  is  entirely  free.  Even  literal  accuracy  is  nothing 
to  him  ao  long  as  he  gets  his  effect.  Thus  he  .imences  one  of  his 
stories  with  the  brazen  statement:  "In  Texas  you  may  joMiney  for 
a  thousand  miles  in  a  straight  line."  You  can't,  of  course;  and 
O.  Henry  knew  it.  It  is  only  his  way  of  saying  that  Texas  is  a  very 
big  place.     So  with  his  tincture  of  aconite.    It  may  be  poisonous 


or  it  may  be  not.  But  it 
sounds  poisonous  and  that 
is  enough  for  O.  Henry.  This 
is  true  art. 

•  •  •  •  • 

After  his  brief  drug-store 
experience  O.  Henry  moved 
toNewOrleans.  Even  in  his 
Texan  and  Central  American 
days  he  seems  to  have  scrib- 
bled stories.  InNewOrleans 
he  set  to  work  deliberately  as 
writer.     Much  of  his  best 
work  was  poured  forth  with 
the    prodigality   of  genius 
into  the  columns  of  the  daily 
pi  ess   without   thought  of 
fame.    The  money  that  he 
received,  so  it  is  said,  was 
but  a  pittance.    Stories  that 
would  sell  to-day, — were  O. 
Henry    alive    and    writing 
them  now, — for  a  thousand 
dollars,  went  for   next   to 
nothing.      Throughout   his 
life  money  meant  little  or    "— — ^— — — — — — ^^-^— — 

nothing  to  him.  If  he  had  it,  he  spent  it,  loaned  it  or  gave  it  away. 
When  he  had  it  not  he  bargained  with  an  editor  for  the  payment  in 
advance  of  a  story  which  he  meant  to  write,  and  of  which  he 
exhibited  the  title  or  a  few  sentences  as  a  sample,  and  which  he  wrote, 
faithfully  enough,  "when  he  got  round  to  it."  The  story  runs  of 
how  one  night  a  beggar  on  the  street  asked  O.  Henry  for  money.  He 
drew  forth  a  coin  from  his  pocket  in  the  darkness  and  handed  it  to 
the  man.  A  few  moments  later  the  beggar  looked  at  the  coin  under 
a  street  lamp,  and  being  even  such  a  beggar  as  O.  Henry  loved  to 
write  about,  he  came  running  back  with  the  words,  "Say,  you 
made  a  mistake,  this  is  a  twenty-dollar  gold  piece."  *'I  know  it  is," 
said  O.  Henry,  "but  it's  all  I  have." 

The  story  may  not  be  true.    But  at  least  it  ought  to  be. 


"I  Am  Jmt  a  Poor  Boy  From  tho  Country" 

"Oh,  pshaw!  Leant  me  alone!  I  am  put  a  poor  boy 
from  the  country. "  Sensitive,  avoiding  the  lime  /ijAr,  this 
is  the  "whimsical  answer  that  O.  Henry — America's  greatest 
short  story  writer — made  when  the  world  tried  to  lioniv 
him.  He  preferred  the  shadows  of  the  street  comers,  where 
he  could  gaze  upon  the  hurrying  stream  oflifr,  deep  into 
the  hearts  of  men  and  picture  for  you  the  generosity,  fero- 
city, kindliness,  -want,  devotion,  'the  laughter  and  the  mockny, 
the  frverish  tcti-vity  and  the  stark  despair— all  the  ■:ompUX 
interplay  of  human  emotions  which  go  to  make  /•  "r. 


From  New  Orleans  O.  Henry  moved  to  New  York  and  became  a 
unit  among  the  "four million  "dwellers  in  flats  and  apartment  houses 
and  sand-stone  palaces  who  live  within  the  roar  of  the  elevated 
railway,  and  from  whom  the  pale  light  of  the  moon  and  the  small 
effects  of  the  planetary  system  are  overwhelmed  in  the  glare  of  the 
Great  White  Way.  Here  O.Henry's  finest  work  was  done, — inimitable, 
unsurpassable  stories  that  make  up  the  volumes  entitled  The  Four 
Million^  The  Trimmed  Lamp  and  The  Voice  of  the  City. 

Marvellous  indeed  they  are.  Written  ofF-hand  with  the  bold 
carelessness  of  the  pen  that  only  genius  dare  use,  but  revealing 
behind  them  such  a  glowing  of  the  imagination  and  such  a  depth  of 
understanding  of  the  human  heart  as  only  genius  can  make  manifest. 

Bagdad  on  the  Subway 

What  O.  Henry  did  for  Central  America  he  does  again  for  New 
York.  He  waves  a  wand  over  it  and  it  becomes  a  city  of  mystery  and 
romance.  It  is  no  longer  the  roaring,  surging  metropolis  that  we 
thought  we  knew,  with  its  clattering  elevated,  its  unending  crowds, 
and  on  every  side  the  repellent  selfishness  of  the  rich,  the  grim  strug- 
gle of  the  poor,  and  the  listless  despair  of  the  outcast.  It  has  become, 
as  O.  Henry  loves  to  call  it,  Bagdad  upon  the  Subway.  The  glare  has 
gone.  There  is  a  soft  light  suffusing  the  city.  Its  corner  drug-stores 
turn  to  enchanted  bazaars.  From  the  open  doors  of  its  restaurants 
and  palm  rooms,  tliere  issues  such  a  melody  of  softened  music  that  we 
feel  we  have  but  to  cross  the  threshold  and  there  is  Bagdad  waiting 
for  us  beyond.  A  transformed  waiter  hands  us  to  a  chair  at  a  little 
table, — Arabian,  I  will  swear  it, — beside  an  enchanted  rubber  tree. 
There  is  red  wine  such  as  Omar  Khayyam  drank,  here  on  Sixth 
Avenue.  At  the  tables  about  us  are  a  strange  and  interesting  crew, — 
dervishes  in  the  disguise  of  American  business  men,  caliphs  mas- 
querading as  tourists,  bedouins  from  S3'ria  and  fierce  fantassins  from 
the  desert  turned  into  western  visitors  from  Texas,  and  among  them 
— can  we  believe  our  eyes,—  houris  from  the  inner  harems  of  Ispahan 
and  Candahar,  whom  we  mistook  but  yesterday  for  the  ladies  of  a 
Shubert  chorus!  As  we  pass  out  we  pay  our  money  to  an  enchanted 
cashier  with  golden  hair, — sitting  behind  glass, — under  the  spell  of 
some  magician  without  a  doubt, — and  then  taking  O.  Henry's 
hand  we  wander  forth  among  the  ever  changing  scenes  of  night 
adventure,  the  mingled  tragedy  and  humour  of  The  Four  Million, 


that  his  pen  alone  can  depict. 
Now  did  ever  Haroun  al  Raschid 
and  his  viziers,  wandering  at  will 
in  the  narrow  streets  of  their  Arabian  city,  meet  such  varied  adven- 
ture as  lies  before  us,  strolling  hand  in  hand  with  O.  Henry  in  the 
new  Bagdad  that  he  reveals. 


But  let  us  turn  to  the  stories  themselves.  O.  Henry  wrote  in  all 
two  hundred  short  stories  of  an  average  of  about  fifteen  pages  each. 
This  was  the  form  in  which  his  literary  activity  shaped  itself  by 
instinct.  A  novel  he  never  wrote.  A  play  he  often  meditated  but 
never  achieved.  One  of  his  books, — Cabbages  and  Kings, — can 
make  a  certain  claim  to  be  continuous.  But  even  this  is  rather  a 
collection  of  little  stories  than  a  single  piece  of  fiction.  But  it  is  an 
error  of  the  grossest  kind  to  say  that  O.  Henry's  work  is  not  sus- 
tained. In  reality  his  canvas  is  vast.  His  New  York  stories,  like 
those  of  Central  America  or  of  the  west,  form  one  great  picture  as 
gloriously  comprehensive  in  its  scope  as  the  lengthiest  novels  of  a 
Dickens  or  the  canvas  of  a  Da  Vinci.  It  is  only  the  method  that  is 
different,  not  the  result. 

It  is  hard  indeed  to  illustrate  O.  Henry's  genius  by  the  quif.-ition 


of  single  phrases  and  sentences.  The  humour  that  is  in  his  work  lies 
too  deep  for  that.  His  is  not  the  comic  wit  that  explodes  the  reader 
into  a  huge  guffaw  of  laughter  and  vanishes.  His  humour  is  of  that 
deep  quality  that  smiles  at  life  itself  and  mingles  our  amusement  with 
our  tears. 

Still  harder  is  it  to  try  to  shew  the  amazing  genius  of  0.  Henry  as  a 
"plot  maker,"  as  a  designer  of  incident.  No  one  better  than  he 
can  hold  the  reader  in  suspense.  Nay,  more  than  that,  the  reader 
scarcely  knows  that  he  is  "suspended,"  until  at  the  very  close  of  the 
story  O.  Henry,  so  to  speak,  turns  on  the  lights  and  the  whole  tale  is 
revealed  as  an  entirety.  But  to  do  justice  to  a  plot  in  a  few  para- 
graphs is  almost  impossible.  Let  the  reader  consider  to  what  a  few 
poor  shreds  even  the  best  of  our  novels  or  plays  is  reduced,  when  we 
try  to  set  forth  the  basis  of  it  in  the  condensed  phrase  of  a  text-book 
of  literature,  or  diminish  it  to  the  language  of  the  "scenario"  of  a 
moving  picture.    Let  us  take  an  example. 

We  will  transcribe  our  immortal  Hamlet  as  faithfully  as  we  can 
into  a  few  words  with  an  eye  to  explain  the  plot  and  nothing  else. 
It  will  run  about  as  follows: 

"Hamlet's  uncle  kills  his  father  and  marries  his  mother,  and 
Hamlet  is  so  disturbed  about  this  that  he  either  is  mad  or  pretends 
to  be  mad.  In  this  condition  he  drives  his  sweetheart  insane  and 
she  drowns,  or  practically  drowns,  herself.  Hamlet  then  kills  his 
uncle's  chief  adviser  behind  an  arras  either  in  mistake  for  ^,  rat,  or 
not.  Hamlet  then  gives  poison  to  his  uncle  and  his  mother,  stabs 
Laertes  and  kills  himse'f.  There 
is  much  discussion  among  the 
critics  as  to  whether  his  actions 
justify  us  in  calling  him  insane." 

There!  The  example  is,  per- 
haps, not  altogether  convincing. 
It  does  not  seem  somehow,  faith- 
ful though  it  is,  to  do  Shakespeare 


Th*  Enchtmttd  Kia* 

fVith  violets  and  champapie  and  eUctricity  to  help, 
he  dared  to  kiss  her — there  in  that  Spanish  built 
tvwu  on  the  border,  inhere  the  color  of  the  Mexican 
has  fired  the  cold  courage  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  a 
spirit  of  lore  and  adventure — where  men  kill  and 
women  kiss  on  the  jump.  There  this  sly  young 
man  kissed  the  beautifiU  girl — and  later,  carefully 


le 


justice.  But  let  it  at  least  illustrate  the  point  under  discussion.  The 
mere  bones  of  a  plot  are  nothing.  We  could  scarcely  form  a  judgment 
on  fenvale  beauty  by  studying  the  skeletons  of  a  museum  of  anatomy. 

But  with  this  distinct  understanding,  let  me  try  to  present 
the  outline  of  a  typical  O.  Henry  story.  I  select  it  from  the  volume 
entitled  The  Gentle  Grafter,  a  book  that  is  mainly  concerned  with 
the  wiles  of  JefF  Peters  and  his  partners  and  associates.  Mr.  Peters, 
who  acts  as  the  narrator  of  most  of  the  stories,  typifies  the  peren- 
nial fakir  and  itinerant  grafter  of  the  Western  States, — ready  to 
turn  his  hand  to  anything  from  selling  patent  medicines  under  a 
naphtha  lamp  on  the  street  corner  of  a  western  town  to  peddling 
bargain  Bibles  from  farm  to  farm, — anything  in  short  that  does 
not  involve  work  and  carries  with  it  the  peculiar  excitement  of 
trying  to  keep  out  of  the  State  penitentiary.  All  the  world  loves 
a  grafter, — at  least  a  genial  and  ingenious  grafter, — a  Robin  Hood 
who  plunders  an  abbot  to  feed  a  beggar,  an  Alfred  Jingle,  a  Scapin, 
a  Raffles, — or  any  of  the  multifarious  characters  of  the  world's 
Hterature  who  reveal  the  fact  that  much  that  is  best  in  humanity 
may  flourish  even  on  the  shadowy  side  of  technical  iniquity.  Of 
this  glwious  company  is  Mr.  Jefferson  Peters.  But  let  us  take 
him  as  he  is  revealed  in  Jeff  Peters  as  a  Personal  Magnet  and  let 
us  allow  him  to  introduce  himself  and  his  business. 

"I  struck  Fisher  Hill,"  Mr.  Peters  relates,  "in  a  buckskin  suit, 
moccasins,  long  hair  and  a  thirty-carat  diamond  ring  that  I  got  from 

an  actor  in  Texarkana.  I  don't 
know  what  he  ever  did  with  the 
pocket-knife  I  swapped  him  for  it. 

"I  was  Dr.  Waugh-hoo,  the 
celebrated  Indian  medicine  man. 
I  carried  only  one  best  bet  just 
then,  and  that  was  Resurrection 
Bitters.     It   was   made  of  life- 


dnssed  in  an  eUAortOt  -wrapper  with  her  little  bare 
feet  in  white  fwansdvtun  dippers,  she  waited  for 
him  to  come.  And  when  he  did,  just  by  accident 
she  turned  the  light  the  wrong  Win.  A  Umgh,  a 
•whiff  of  heliotrope,  a  groping  Mtle  hand  on  his  arm. 
What  he  did  was  the  last  ihmg  you'd  expect.  Read 
this  story  and  you  ■will  know  why  they  caU  O.  Hauy 
master  of  the  unexpected  ending 


Lovm  on  7%«  Mtxiean  Bordmr 

Sntetlv  the  smiled  into  the  eyes  of  both,  kisses  she  took 
from  both— the  nddy  American  and  the  dark-skinned 


Mexican.  And  in  the  strong  arms  of  the  man  from 
the  North,  was  it  any  wonder  that  for  the  moment  At 
forgot  that  Pedro  would  soon  be  there?  Her  punish- 
ment? Men  of  the  North  laugh  coldly  and  pass  on, 
but  the  Southern  brother  below  the  Rio  Grande  loves, 
as  he  hates,  with  a  singleness  that  knows  no  mercy.  On 
this  erring  woman,  going  so  gayly  to  her  fate,  O. 
Henry  could  look  with  excuse  and  pity,  as  he  did  on 
the  -weaknesses  of  women,  always,  everywhere,  for  he 
knew  their  small  shoulders  bear  burdens  hat  would 
break  the  backs  of  men. 


giving  plants  and  herbs  acci- 
dentally discovered  byTa-qua- 
Ia,the  beautiful  wifeofthechief 
of  the  Choctaw  Nation,  while 
gathering  truck  to  garnish  a 
platter  of  boiled  dog  for  an 
annual  corn  dance.  .  .  ." 
In  the  capacity  of  Dr.  Waugh-hoo,  Mr.  Peters  "struck  Fis'ier  Hill." 
He  went  to  a  druggist  and  got  credit  for  half  a  gross  of  eight-ounce 
bottles  and  corks,  and  with  the  help  of  the  running  water  from  the 
tap  in  the  hotel  room,  he  spent  a  long  evening  manufacturing  Resur- 
rection Bitters.  The  next  evening  the  sales  began.  The  bitters  at 
fifty  cents  a  bottle  "started  off  like  sweetbreads  on  toast  at  a 
vegetarian  dinner."  Then  there  intervenes  a  constable  with  a 
German  silver  badge.  "Have  you  got  a  city  license.?"  he  asks,  and 
Mr.  Peters*  medicinal  activity  comes  to  a  full  stop.  The  threat  of 
prosecution  under  the  law  for  practising  medicine  without  a  license 
puts  Mr.  Peters  for  the  moment  out  of  business. 

He  returns  sadly  to  his  hotel,  pondering  on  his  next  move.  Here 
by  good  furtune  he  meets  a  former  acquaintance,  a  certain  Andy 
Tucker,  who  has  just  finished  a  tour  in  the  Southern  States,  work- 
ing the  Great  Cupid  Combination  Package  on  the  chivalrous  an  \ 
unsuspecting  South. 

"Andy,"  says  JeflF,  in  speaking  of  his  friend's  credentials,  "was 
a  good  street  man:  and  he  was  more  than  that— he  respected  his 
profession  and  was  satisfied  with  300  per  cent,  profit.     He  had 


12 


I 


In  one  short  ugly  sentence  Ae  stripped  him  of  his  manhood.    In 

«  moment  of  jest,  she  had  cut  deep  into  his  heart.    As  he  lay 

gazing  at  me  blinking  stars  and  the  shells  that  shrieked  ati  J  burst, 

there  again  rang  in  his  ear  tha^  mocking  laugh  which  fid  sent  him  flying  to  the  front.    She  h<ul  the 

prettiest  hair,  the  brightest  eyes,  the  most  tantalizing  sn  He  in  all  San  Augustine.     He  -would  SHOW 

the  world  that  a  lion's  heart  beat  in  his  little  body. 

The  wax  dated  and  he  went  home — a  Colo!<el  and  a  hero.  San  Augustine  was  frenzied  over  its  native 
son.  Straight  i^  the  path  to  her  home  he  walked,  cad  then,  the  thing  that  happened  wasn  't  at  all  what  you  thirJt, 

plenty  of  offers  to  go  into  the  illegitimate  drug  and  garden  seed 
business,  but  he  was  never  to  be  tempted  off  the  straight  path." 

Andy  and  Jeff  take  counsel  together  in  long  debate  on  the  porch 
of  the  hotel. 

And  here,  appar^^tly,  a  piece  of  good  luck  came  to  Jeff's  help. 
The  very  next  morning  a  messenger  brings  word  that  the  Mayor 
of  the  town  is  suddenly  taken  ill.  The  only  doctor  of  the  place  is 
twenty  miles  away.  Jeff  Peters  is  summoned  to  the  Mayor's 
bedside.  .  .  .  "This  Mayor  Banks,"  Jeff  relates,  "was  in  bed 
all  but  his  whiskers  and  feet.  He  was  making  internal  noises  that 
would  have  hs-^  everybody  in  San  Francisco  h'king  for  the  parks. 
A  young  man  was  standing  by  the  bedside  holding  a  cup  of  water. 
.  .  ."  Mr.  Peters,  called  to  *he  patient's  side,  is  very  cautious. 
He  draws  attention  to  the  fa.  that  he  is  not  a  qualified  practi- 
tioner, is  not  "a  regular  disciple  of  S.  Q.  Lapius." 

The  Mayor  groans  in  pain.  The  young  man  at  the  bedside,  intro- 
duced as  Mr.  Biddle,  the  Mayor's  nephew,  urges  Mr.  Peters  or  Doctor 
Waugh-hoo, — in  the  name  of  common  humanity  to  attempt  a  cure. 


«3 


h  It  Too  Lato  ? 

Thtte  are  the  "wonbthatgo  with  him— 
rich  and  young  still— gay  and  litht- 
hearted  no  longer.  For  in  hit  mind  he 
sees  the  lonely,  brave  girl  in  Briekdust 
Rov — and  knovt  that  on  his  head  arid 
on  the  heads  of  his  ancestors  lies  her 
sorrow.  And  now  it  is  too  late — too 
late.  SHll—hut  let  die  story  be  told 
by  O.  Henry. 


Finally  JefF  Peters  prom- 
ises to  treat  the  Mayor 
by  "scientific  demonstra- 
tion."    He  proposes,  he 
says,  to  make  use  of  the 
"great  doctrine  of  psychic 
financiering — of  the   en- 
lightening school  of  long- 
distance   subconscious 
treatment    of    fallacies    and 
meningitis, — of  that  wonderful 
in-door  sport  known  as  pers(5nal 
magnetism."    But  he  warns  the  Mayor 
that  the  treatment  is  difficult.  It  uses  up 
great  quantities  of  soul  strength.    It  comes 
high.   It  cannot  be  attempted  under  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars. 
The  Mayor  groans.    But  he  yields.    The  treatment  begins. 
"You   ain't    sick,"  says  Dr.  Waugh-hoo,   looking  the  patient 
right  in  the  eye.    "You  ain't  got  any  pain.    The  right  lobe  of  your 
perihelion  is  subsided." 

The  result  is  surprising.    The  Mayor's  system  seems  to  respond 
at  once.   "I  do  feel  some  better.  Dor  "  he  says,  "darned  if  I  don't." 
Mr.  Peters  assumes  a  triumph.       air.     He  promises  to  return 
next  day  for  a  second  and  final  treatment. 

"I'll  come  back,"  he  says  to  the  young  man,  "at  eleven.  You 
may  give  him  eight  drops  of  turpentine  and  three  pounds  of  steak. 
Good  morning." 

Next  day  the  final  treatment  is  given.  The  Mayor  is  completely 
restored.     Two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  all  in  cash,  is  handed  to 


14 


"Dr.  Waugh-hoo."  The  young  man  asks  for  a  receipt.  It  is!  no 
sooner  written  out  by  JefF  F.   ers,  than: 

"  'Now  do  your  duty,  officer,'  says  the  Mayor,  grinning  much 
unHke  a  sick  man. 

"Mr.  Biddle  lays  his  hand  on  my  arm- 

"  'You're  under  arrest,  Dr.  Waugh-hoo,  alias  Peters,'  says  he, 
'for  practising  medicine  without  authority  under  the  State  law.' 

"  'Who  are  you?'  I  asks. 

"  'I'll  tell  you  who  he  is,'  says  Mr.  Mayor,  sitting  up  in  bed. 
He's  a  detective  employed  by  the  Stale  me«1ical  Society.  He's 
been  following  you  over  five  counties.  He  came  to  me  yesterday 
and  we  fixed  up  this  scheme  to  catch  you.  I  guess  >ou  won't  do 
any  more  doctoring  around  these  parts,  Mr.  Fakir.  What  was  it 
you  said  I  had,  Doc?' the  Mayor  laughs,  'compound — well,  it  wasn't 
softening  of  the  brain,  I  guess,  anyway." 

Ingenious,  isn't  it?  One  hadn't  suspected  it.  But  will  the 
reader  kindly  note  the  conclusion  of  the  story  as  it  follows,  handled 
with  the  Jightning  rapidity  of  a  conjuring  trick. 

"  'Come  on,  officer.'  says  I,  dignified.  *I  may  «'•  well  make  the 
best  of  it.'  And  then  I  turns  to  old  Banks  and  ties  my  chains. 
"  'Mr.  Mayor,'  says  I,  'the  time  will  come  soon  when  you'll  believe 
that  personal  magnetism  is  a  success.  And  you'll  be  sure  that  it 
succeeded  in  this  case,  too.' 

"And  I  guess  it  did. 

"When  we  got  nearly  to  the  gate,  I  says:  'We  might  meet  some- 
body now,  Andy.     I  reckon  you  better  take  'em  off,  and * 

Hey?  Why,  of  course  it  was  Andv  Tucker.  That  was  his  scheme; 
and  that's  how  we  got  the  capital  to  go  into  business  together." 

Now  let  us  set  beside  this  a  story  of  a  different  type,  The  Fur- 
nished Room,  which  appears  in  the  volume  called  The  Four  Million. 
It  shows  O.  Henry  at  his  best  as  a  master  of  that  supreme  pathos 
that  springs,  with  but  little  adventitious  aid  of  time  or  circum- 
stance, from  the  fundamental  things  of  life  itself.  In  the  sheer 
art  of  narration  there  is  nothing  done  by  Maupassant  that  surpasses 
The  Furnished  Room.  The  story  runs, — so  far  as  one  dare  attempt  to 
reproduce  it  without  quoting  it  all  word  for  worH, — after  this  fashion. 


The  scene  is  laid  in  New  York,  in  the  lost  district  of  the  lower 
West  Side,  where  the  wandering  feet  of  actors  and  one-week  tran- 
sients seek  furnished  rooms  in  dilapidated  houses  of  fallen  grandeur. 

One  evening  after  dark  a  youngman  prowled  among  these  crum- 
bling red  mansions,  ringing  their  bells.  At  the  twelfth  he  rested  his 
lean  hand-baggage  upon  the  step  and  wiped  the  dust  from  his  hat- 
band and  forehead.  The  bell  sounded  faint  and  far  away  in  some 
remote  hollow  depths.  .  .  .  *'I  have  the  third  floor  back 
vacant  since  a  week  back,"  says  the  landlady.  .  .  .  "It's  a 
nice  room.  It  ain't  often  vacant.  1  had  some  most  elegant  people 
in  it  last  summer^no  trouble  at  all  and  paid  in  advance  to  the 
minute.  The  water's  at  the  end  of  the  hall.  Sprowls  and  Mooney 
kept  it  three  months.  They  done  a  vaudeville  sketch.  Miss 
B'retta  Sprowls,  you  may  have  heard  of  her, — Oh,  that  was  just 
the  stage  name — right  there  over  the  dresser  is  where  the  marriage 
certificate  hung,  framed.  The  gas  is  here  and  you  see  there's 
plenty  of  closet  room.  It's  a  room  every  one  likes.  It  never 
stays  idle  long " 

The  young  man  takes  the  room,  paying  a  week  in  advance.  Then 
he  asks: 

"A  young  girl — Miss  Vashner— Miss  Eloise  Vashner — do  you 
remember  such  a  one  among  your  lodgers  ?  She  would  be  singing 
on  the  stage  most  likely." 

The  landlady  shakes  her  head.  They  comes  and  goes,  she  tells 
him,  she  d  esn't  call  that  one  to  mind. 

It  is  the  same  answer  that  he  has  been  receiving,  up  and  down, 
in  the  crumbling  houses  of  the  lost  district,  through  weeks  and 
months  of  wandering.  No,  always  no.  Five  months  of  ceaseless 
interrogation  and  the  inevitable  negative.  So  much  time  spent 
by  day  in  questioning  managers,  agents,  schools  and  choruses;  by 
night  among  the  audiences  of  theatres  from  allstar  casts  down  to 
music  halls  so  low  that  he  dreaded  to  find  what  he  most  hoped 
for.  .  .  .  The  young  man,  left  in  his  sordid  room  of  the  thJrd 
floor  back,  among  its  decayed  furniture,  its  ragged  brocade  uphol- 
stery, sinks  into  a  chair.  The  dead  weight  of  despair  is  on  him. 
.  .  .  Then,  suddenly,  as  he  rested  there,  the  room  was  filled 
with  the  strong,  sweet  odour  of  mignonette — the  flower  that  she 
had  always  loved,  the  perfume  that  she  had  always  worn.     It  is 

i6 


as  if  her  very  presence  was  beside  him  in  the  empty  room.  He 
rises.  He  cries  aloud,  "What,  dear?"  as  if  she  had  called  to  him. 
She  has  been  there  in  the  room.  He  knows  it.  He  feels  it.  Then 
eager,  tremulous  with  hope,  he  searches  the  room,  tears  open  the 
crazy  chest  of  drawers,  fumbles  upon  the  shelves,  for  some  sign  of 
her.  Nothing  and  still  nothing,— a  crumpled  playbill,  a  half-smoked 
cigar,  the  dreary  and  ignoble  small  records  of  many  a  peripatetic 
tenant,  but  of  the  woman  that  he  seeks,  nothing.  Yet  still  that 
haunring  perfume  that  seems  to  speak  her  presence  at  his  very  side. 

The  young  man  dashes  trembling  from  the  room.  Again  he 
questions  the  landlady,— was  there  not,  before  him  in  the  room, 
a  young  lady?  Surely  there  must  have  been,— fair,  of  medium 
height,  and  with  reddish  gold  hair?    Surely  there  was? 


But  the  landlady,  as  if  obdurate,  shakes  her  head. 
you    again,"    she 


Up  Frwn  Thm  D^ptha 

Tht  nun  had  kilUd  a  num — he  had  met  theprl— 
tf  stranger— 4it  half-bast  one  at  Rooney's.  A  crisis 
came— and  under  the  surface  of  shame,  the  souls  of 
each  sb)od  forth  to  sacripce—and  to  a  better,  clean- 
er Ufe.  to  O.  Henry  it  is  gfi«i  to  see  beneath 
the  outer  darkness— to  the  soul  within.  It's  not  the 
truth  a  man  teUs,  but  the  spirit  in  which  he  tells  it 
Aat  counts.  That  is  why  O.  Henry  can  write  of 
things  not  always  told,  and  yet  ha*t  dean,  hid) 
Wiril.  He  tells  of  those  who  would  rather  suffer 
hunger  than  be  bad— and  the  others. 


'I  can  tell 
says,  "'twas 
Sprowls  and  Moortey,  as  I  said. 
Miss  B'retta  Sprowls,  it  was,  in 
the  theatres,  but  Missis  ^ooney 
she  was.  The  marriage  certifi- 
cate hung,  framed,  on  a  nail 
over 


»7 


Th*  La$t  Lsaf 

Jchmey  vanitd  to  Jie.    AnJ  the  knew  die 

would  die  when  die  last  leaf  fell  from  the  vine 

on  die  old  brick  wall  opposite  that  dreary  room 

near  H^admpon  Square-    She  was  so  "weary. 

But  Old  Behrman—the  fierce  old  man  who  had  tried  for  forty  years  to 

paint  a  masterpiece — -who  drank  gin  to  excess— st^ed  in  and  kept  diat 

leaf  on  the  wall.    Jonssey  got  well    It  -was  a  life  for  a  life. 

Widi  the  vision  dut  sees  the  majesty  of  heroism  in  plain  men—0.  Henry 
tells  die  story.  ' 


...  The  young  man  returns  to  his  room.  It  is  all  over. 
His  search  is  vain.  The  ebbing  of  his  last  hope  has  drained  his 
faith.  .  .  .  For  a  time  he  sat  staring  at  the  yellow,  singing 
gaslight.  Then  he  rose.  He  walked  to  the  bed  and  began  to  tear 
the  sheets  into  strips.  With  the  blade  of  his  knife  he  drove  them 
tightly  into  every  crevice  around  windows  and  door.  When  all 
was  snug  and  taut  he  turned  out  the  light,  turned  the  gas  full 
again  and  laid  himself  gratefully  upon  the  bed. 


on 


And  now  let  the  reader  note  the  ending  paragraphs  of  the  story, 
so  told  thai-  not  one  word  of  it  must  be  altered  or  abridged  from 
the  form  in  which  O.  Henry  framed  it. 

It  was  Mrs.  McCool's  night  to  go  with  the  can  for  beer.  So 
she  fetched  it  and  sat  with  Mrs.  Purdy  (the  landlady)  in  one  of 
those  subterranean  retreats  where  housekeepers  foregather  and 
the  worm  dieth  seldom. 

"I  rented  out  my  third  floor,  back,  this  evening,"  said  Mrs. 
Purdy,  across  a  fine  circle  of  foam.  "A  young  man  took  it.  He 
went  up  to  bed  two  hours  ago." 

"Now,  did  ye,  Mrs.  Purdy,  ma'am?"  said  Mrs.  McCool,  with 
intense  admiration.     "You  do  be  a  wonder  for  rentin'  rooms  of 

i8 


Imagine  a  Jreary  fumisM  room— a  discouraged  gtrl 

In  a  golden  gww 


writing  Mis  of  fare  for  her  meals.  ...  »  g^„,.  g,„» 
she  saw  the  dandelions  of  last  summer  and  the  young 
farmer  -whom  she  had  lost.  No  wonder  she  made  the 
error,  but  it  was  a  glorious  error — it  brou^t  Walter 
to  her  again— and  happiness.    How?  Ask  O.  Henry. 


that  kind.  And  did  ye  tell 
him,  then?"  she  concluded  in 
a  husky  whisper,  laden  with 
mystery. 

"Rcx)ms,"said  Mrs.  Purdy,     ^ 
in  her  furriest  tones,  "are  furnished   for  to  rent.      1  tell 

him,  Mrs.  McCool." 

*  Tis  right  ye  are,  ma'am;  'tis  by  renting  rooms  we  kape  alive. 
Ye  have  the  rale  sense  for  business,  ma'am.  There  be  many  people 
will  rayjict  the  rentin'  of  a  room  if  they  be  tould  a  suicide  has  been 
after  dyin'  in  the  bed  of  it." 

"As  you  say,  we  has  our  living  to  be  making,"  remarked  Mrs. 
Purdy. 

"Yis,  ma'am;  'tis  true.  Tis  just  one  wake  ago  this  day  I  helped 
ye  lay  out  the  third  floor,  back.  A  pretty  slip  of  a  colleen  she  was 
to  be  killin'  herself  wid  the  gas— a  swate  little  face  she  had,  Mrs. 
Purdy,  ma'am." 

"She'd  a-been  called  handsome,  as  you  say,"  said  Mr.  Pu-'^y, 

'9 


A  Mytimry  of  thm  Sixth  SmM 

In  the  little  yillagc  at  home  he  had  lost  her.     He  haj  leanheJ  for  her 

the  "world  over.     He  had  longed  for  her  and  loved  her.     At  last, 

he  gave  it  up  and  came  to  New  York  to  live  in  a  shabby  boarding 

house.     There  in  his  awn  room  he  found  her.     In  the  dust  of  tM  comers,  he 

felt  her  presence.     In  the  bureau  drawers—in  the  very  air,  he  knew  her  presence. 

She  had  been  there  but  a  short  -week  before.     Let  O.  Henry  tell  you  Ae  story. 

assenting  but  critical,  "but  for  that  mole  she  had  a-grownin'  by 
her  left  eyebrow.     Do  fill  up  your  glass  agair   Mrs.  McCool." 

Beyond  these  two  stories,  I  do  not  care  to  go.  But  if  the  reader 
is  not  satisfied  let  him  procure  for  himself  the  story  called  J  Muni- 
cipal Report  in  the  volume  Strictly  Business.  After  he  has  read 
it  he  will  either  pronounce  O.  Henry  one  of  the  greatest  masters 
of  modern  fiction  or  else, — well,  or  else  he  is  a  jackass.  Let  us 
put  it  that  way. 

O.  Henry  lived  some  nine  years  in  New  York  but  little  known 
to  the  public  at  large.  Towards  the  end  there  came  to  him  suc- 
cess, a  competence  and  something  that  might  be  called  celebrity 
if  not  fame.  But  it  was  marvellous  how  his  light  remained  hid. 
The  time  came  when  the  best  known  magazines  eagerly  sought  his 


20 


work.  He  could  have  com  unded  his  own  price.  But  the  noto- 
riety of  noisy  success,  the  personal  triumph  of  literary  conspicu- 
ousness  he  neither  achieved  nor  envied.  A  certain  cruel  experience 
of  his  earlier  days — tragic,  unmerited  and  not  here  to  be  recorded, — 
had  left  him  shy  of  mankind  at  large  and,  in  the  personal  sense, 
aixious  only  for  obscurity.  Even  when  the  American  public  in 
tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands  read  his  matchless  stories,  rhey 
read  them,  so  to  speak,  in  isolated  fashion,  as  personal  discoveries, 
unaware  for  years  of  the  collective  greatness  of  O.  He:iry's  vrork 
viewed  as  a  total.  The  few  who  were  privileged  to  know  him, 
seem  to  have  valued  him  beyond  all  others  and  to  have  found  hirri 
even  greater  than  his  work.  And  then,  in  mid-career  as  it  seemed, 
there  was  laid  upon  him  the  hand  of  wasting  and  mortal  disease, 
which  brought  him  slowly  to  his  end,  his  courage  and  his  gentle 
kindliness  unbroken  to  the  last.  "I  shall  die,"  he  said  one  winter 
with  one  of  the  quoted  phrases  that  fell  so  aptly  from  his  lips,  in 
the  good  old  summer  time."  And  "in  the  good  old  summer  time" 
with  a  smile  and  a  jest  upon  his  lips  he  died.  "Don't  tum  down 
the  lignt,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said  to  those  beside  his  bed,  and 
then,  as  the  words  of  a  popular  song  flickered  across  his  mind,  he 
added,  "I'm  afraid  to  gu  home  in  the  dark." 

That  was  five  years  ago.  Since  his  death,  his  fame  in  America 
has  grown  greater  and  greater  with  every  year.  The  laurel  wreath 
that  should  have  crowned  his  brow  is  exchanged  for  the  garland 
laid  upon  his  grave. 


T*f  gamhirr  rr;  there,  a  big  ta  -roing  man,  when  the  •amman  dips  m,  •with  a 
black  shawl,  creepy  hair,  ragged .  1,  -white  face,  eyes  a  cross  between  Gabriel's 
and  a  sick  kitten  i.  She  stan  •  t  "without  a  word  and  looks  at  the  money. 
Old  Jack  gets  vp,  peels  off  the  >      and  then— but  O.  Henry  tells  it  better. 


31 


O.  HENRY 

Hais  Come  to  Fill  American  life 

Wherever  you  go — whatever  you  read — you  meet  O. 
Henry.  In  the  news  stories  from  the  war,  there  are  inti- 
mate references  to  O.  Henry — at  social  gatherings — at 
hunt  meets — on  the  road — everywhere  everybody  knows 
O.  Henry  and  refers  lovingly  to  his  people  and  his  stories. 

The  Founder  of  a  New  Literature 

No  wonder  the  side  goes  up  and  up — higher  and  higher 
each  day.  Lx  ig  ago  he  reached  beyond  the  world's 
record  for  short  stories.  1 ,500,000  volumes  adready  in  the 
United  States.  How  many  in  France,  England,  Germany, 
Africa,  Asia  and  Australia,  we  cannot  tell.  As  the  years 
go  by  our  wonder  grows  greater — as  the  years  go  by,  his 
feime  grows  greater  for  the  wisdom,  the  understanding, 
the  love,  the  humor,  the  sweetness  of  his  pages.  Al- 
ways healthy  in  their  influence,  always  facing  truth  when 
truth  has  to  be  told,  a  bracer  to  the  heart  and  mind,  while 
the  tears  and  laughter  struggle  together  and  neither  wins. 

Don't  Get  Him  to  Read  Him  Once 

You'll  read  him  a  hundred  times — and  find  him  each 
time  as  fresh  and  unexF>ected  as  at  the  first.  He  puts 
his  finger  on  the  pulse-strings  of  your  heart  and  plays 
on  them  to  your  delight  and  your  surprise.  That  is  the 
mystery  of  O.  Henry — his  power  beyond  understanding. 

Send  the  Card  and  You    Send  the  Card  and  You 


will  understand  why  O.  Henry  is 
hailed  as  "The  American  Kipling." 
"TheY.  M.C.  A.  Boccaccio;"  "Master 
of  the  ShortStory;"  "Creator  of  a  New 
Literature;"  "Discoverer  of  Romance 
in  New  York's  StreeU;"  "The  Ameri- 
can de  Maupassant;"  "The  Homer 
of  the  Tenderloin;"  "Founder  of  a 
New  Style;"  "America's  Greatest 
Story  Teller;*'  "The  20th  Century 
Haroun-AI-l^chid  who  takes  you  to 
every  comer  of  his  beloved  Bagdad 
-New*  York." 


ill  understand  as  never  before  why 
other  nations  are  going  wild  over  him 
— why  memorials  to  him  are  being 
prepared;  why  universities  are  plan- 
ning tablets  to  his  memory;  why 
textbooks  of  Elnglish  Literature  are 
including  his  stories;  why  colleges  are 
discussing  his  place  in  literature;  why 
theatrical  firms  are  vying  for  rights  to 
dramatize  his  stories;  why  news- 
papers all  over  the  country  are  con- 
tinually offering  big  sums  for  the 
right  to  reprint  his  stories. 


Join  the  130,000  Who 
Ahready  Own  O.  Henry 

130,000  people  —  their  homes  would 
make  a  great  city  like  Boston — ^have 
laughed  and  wept  over  what  this  card 
brought  them;  130,000  have  feh  the 
I  in  the  throat  as  they  looked  on 
world — good  and  bad — through 

understanding 

0  have  congratu- 
Ives,  when   they 
live  volumes  they 
>    little    a    price, 
Kipling  they  got 
hing.      Join    the 
army  of  lucky  people 
now.     Join  it  before 
5  offer  closes, 
end  the  card  to- 
day for  the  Kip- 
ling free  and  the 
O.    Henry   at 
a  low  price. 


•fffe' 


1**" 


m 


f 


^ 


{ 


Finish  This  Story 
for  Yourself — 

The  girl  got  $6  a  week  and  was 
lonely.  "Piggy" — you  can  imagine 
his  kind— was  waiting  downstairs. 
He  knew  where  champagne  and 
music  could  be  had  But  that  night 
she  didn't  go.  That  was  Lord 
Kitchener's  doing.  But  another 
night  ? 

O.  HENRY 

tells  about  it  in  a  story,  with  that 
full  knowledge  of  women,  with 
that  frank  feeing  of  sex,  and  that 
clean  mind  that  have  endeared  him 
to  the  men  and  women  of  the  land. 


-.Jfr- 


■-■  S-W?*af?.-  f^.:  V 


Ml*> 


